Health insurer sued over disclosure of exclusions

A health insurer owned by two Wall Street giants is headed to trial next week over claims it misled a San Bernardino County couple into buying a policy that left them with more than $140,000 in unpaid medical bills from cancer treatment.

Norman and Kathleen Carter of Yucaipa are battling their insurance company, even as Kathleen continues to fight abdominal cancer.

The couple sued a unit of HealthMarkets Inc. in August 2011 in Superior Court for fraud and breach of contract, accusing the company and its insurance agent of deliberately misrepresenting the health plan benefits. The insurer has denied any wrongdoing in court filings, and the case is scheduled for trial Wednesday.

HealthMarkets and its three subsidiaries, Mid-West National, Mega Life and Health and Chesapeake Life, cater to individual policyholders and the self-employed, and they have run into regulatory trouble for years.

The San Bernardino County case highlights the struggles many consumers face trying to understand the benefits and limits of coverage when choosing a health plan. In 2014, the federal healthcare law imposes new rules aimed at preventing insurers from selling policies with confusing exclusions that can result in large, unforeseen medical expenses for consumers.

The Carters said they purchased a Cover America plan from Mid-West National in 2004 to provide coverage for major illnesses and protect them from incurring significant medical debt. They said one of the company's insurance agents, Joseph Bertino, assured them they were purchasing up to $1 million in coverage.

Bertino couldn't be reached for comment. A spokeswoman for HealthMarkets declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Early last year, Kathleen Carter was diagnosed with a form of abdominal cancer called primary peritoneal carcinoma. The dental hygienist, 63 at the time, spent nearly four weeks in the hospital, underwent surgery and began chemotherapy.

Kathleen Carter said she was shocked when she opened a bill showing that her insurer had labeled most of her care as "miscellaneous" hospital charges, for which her policy would pay only up to $18,000 per hospital stay.

The insurance company paid roughly $30,000 toward her care, according to the lawsuit. The Carters said that left them owing more than $140,000 to Loma Linda University Medical Center and other providers. Her 64-year-old husband, Norman, is an orthodontist in Chino and both of them taught at Loma Linda University.

"You expect your insurance company to help you out with the major stuff when you've been paying premiums for years," Kathleen Carter said. "I quit answering the phone because we were getting all these calls from debt collectors about the medical bills."

Kathleen Carter, who recently turned 65 and became eligible for Medicare, is now undergoing a second round of chemotherapy.

HealthMarkets, based in North Richland Hills, Texas, paid $20 million in 2008 to settle an investigation involving California and 47 other states that accused it of deceptive business practices and misrepresentations.

In 2009, HealthMarkets paid $17 million to resolve similar allegations brought by the Massachusetts attorney general and was banned from selling policies in that state for five years.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office sued HealthMarkets in 2010 in state court over allegations of unfair business practices after it reviewed numerous consumer complaints. No trial date has been set. HealthMarkets declined to comment on the city's suit.

Private equity firm Blackstone Group and the private equity arm of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bought a majority stake in HealthMarkets in 2006. A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment and a representative for Blackstone couldn't be reached.

Washington state regulators, who led the previous multistate investigation into HealthMarkets, levied an additional $325,000 fine earlier this year because the company failed to satisfy some requirements of the 2008 settlement related to agent training and oversight.

"HealthMarkets did have many issues we had concerns with especially regarding oversight of their agents, but it's not the same company today," said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for the Washington state insurance commissioner. "The key areas we had issues with no longer exist."

William Shernoff, a lawyer in Claremont representing the Carters, said the tougher regulations in the federal healthcare law are needed to better protect consumers. "People may think they have good coverage," he said, "and it may be too late when they find out that's not the case."

chad.terhune@latimes.com

Read More..

How One <em>Myst</em> Fan Made Himself a Real-Life Linking Book

The classic PC game Myst was known for drawing people in to its massive, surreal world. But maker Mike Ando took a little piece of that world and drew it into ours. He made a lovingly authentic replica of the Linking Book that helps the main character — you — navigate the world.

Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game created by Cyan Worlds, made of hundreds of beautifully rendered scenes whose combined size made the game so big that it needed a CD-ROM to play, back when many computers didn’t have them. It was the first breakout hit in PC gaming and from its release in 1993 it held the title of best-selling PC game until 2002 when The Sims surpassed it.

The game spawned four sequels, along with novels, music, and an MMO that is still online and being powered by donations from the fan base. The games have been widely ported and the game — once so huge that you needed special hardware to run it — is now available for download on iOS (among other places). In other words, it’s a pretty big deal.

At the core of Myst’s story was a mystical technology called Linking Books that pulled players into other realms, called Ages. They were these beautiful old tomes that, when opened, showed an animated preview of the Age to which you’d be linked.

“Ever since I first played the game, I always wanted my own linking book,” says Ando, “Of course, there was no way my old bulky 486 would fit within a book, but as time marched on technology advanced and computers became smaller. Eventually technology caught up and it was possible to shrink everything down to fit inside the book.”

Pages: 1 2 View All

Read More..

“Big Bang Theory” star Mayim Bialik tweets pre-Thanksgiving divorce plans

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Things are bound to be a little tense around the dinner table at Mayim Bialik‘s house this Thanksgiving.

Bialik is divorcing her husband of nine years, Mike Stone, the “Big Bang Theory” star announced via her twitter account Wednesday.

The actress, 36, tweeted a link to a blog post about the split with the message, “I’m beating the tabloids to it and posting this Divorce Statement.”

The post itself says that the pair decided to divorce “after much consideration and soul-searching,” and cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for the breakup.

Bialik and Stone have two sons, 7-year-old Miles and 4-year-old Frederick, together.

“Divorce is terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible for children. It is not something we have decided lightly,” Bialik wrote in her blog post. “The hands-on style of parenting we practice played no role in the changes that led to this decision; relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose.”

The actress added, “Our sons deserve parents committed to their growth and health and that’s what we are focusing on.”

Bialik’s post concludes, “We will be ok.”

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Insurer’s Regulatory Win Benefits a Chinese Leader’s Family

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Ping An is building a 115-story office tower in Shenzhen. One of China’s largest financial services companies, Ping An is a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential.

SHENZHEN, China — The head of a financially troubled insurer was pushing Chinese officials to relax rules that required breaking up the company in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

The survival of Ping An Insurance was at stake, officials were told in the fall of 1999. Direct appeals were made to the vice premier at the time, Wen Jiabao, as well as the then-head of China’s central bank — two powerful officials with oversight of the industry.

“I humbly request that the vice premier lead and coordinate the matter from a higher level,” Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An, implored in a letter to Mr. Wen that was reviewed by The New York Times.

Ping An was not broken up.

The successful outcome of the lobbying effort would prove monumental.

Ping An went on to become one of China’s largest financial services companies, a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential. And behind the scenes, shares in Ping An that would be worth billions of dollars once the company rebounded were acquired by relatives of Mr. Wen.

The Times reported last month that the relatives of Mr. Wen, who became prime minister in 2003, had grown extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, acquiring stakes in tourist resorts, banks, jewelers, telecommunications companies and other business ventures.

The greatest source of wealth, by far, The Times investigation has found, came from the shares in Ping An bought about eight months after the insurer was granted a waiver to the requirement that big financial companies be broken up.

Long before most investors could buy Ping An stock, Taihong, a company that would soon be controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives, acquired a large stake in Ping An from state-owned entities that held shares in the insurer, regulatory and corporate records show. And by all appearances, Taihong got a sweet deal. The shares were bought in December 2002 for one-quarter of the price that another big investor — the British bank HSBC Holdings — paid for its shares just two months earlier, according to interviews and public filings.

By June 2004, the shares held by the Wen relatives had already quadrupled in value, even before the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And by 2007, the initial $65 million investment made by Taihong would be worth $3.7 billion.

Corporate records show that the relatives’ stake of that investment most likely peaked at $2.2 billion in late 2007, the last year in which Taihong’s shareholder records were publicly available. Because the company is no longer listed in Ping An’s public filings, it is unclear if the relatives continue to hold shares.

It is also not known whether Mr. Wen or the central bank chief at the time, Dai Xianglong, personally intervened on behalf of Ping An’s request for a waiver, or if Mr. Wen was even aware of the stakes held by his relatives.

But internal Ping An documents, government filings and interviews with bankers and former senior executives at Ping An indicate that both the vice premier’s office and the central bank were among the regulators involved in the Ping An waiver meetings and who had the authority to sign off on the waiver.

Only two large state-run financial institutions were granted similar waivers, filings show, while three of China’s big state-run insurance companies were forced to break up. Many of the country’s big banks complied with the breakup requirement — enforced after the financial crisis because of concerns about the stability of the financial system — by selling their assets in other institutions.

Ping An issued a statement to The Times saying the company strictly complies with rules and regulations, but does not know the backgrounds of all entities behind shareholders. The company also said “it is the legitimate right of shareholders to buy and sell shares between themselves.”

In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry did not return calls seeking comment for this article. Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman sharply criticized the investigation by The Times into the finances of Mr. Wen’s relatives, saying it “smears China and has ulterior motives.”

Read More..

Gazans sweep up, head home as truce holds through first day

Members of the Attar family, Palestinians who were displaced during the eight-day conflict with Israel, return to their home in the Atatra area in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, a day after a cease-fire took hold. (Marco Longari / AFP/Getty Imagesa / November 22, 2012)

By Edmund Sanders

November 22, 2012, 10:14 a.m.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – As the truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be enduring through its first 24 hours, Gazans spent Thursday sweeping up, digging out and looking forward.

Hamas declared a public holiday, but most shops and many businesses opened their doors. Israeli warships were replaced on the horizon with Palestinian fishing boats for the first time in a week.

Having endured many conflicts, it’s a day-after drill Gazans know well. Residents who sought shelter in United Nations schools went home. A steady stream of families returning from Egypt arrived at the Rafah border crossing. Bulldozers tried to clear alternate roads around bombed-out bridges.

PHOTOS: Gaza conflict

Glass shop owner Kamal Habboush, 45, had seven walk-in customers by lunchtime to replace broken windows. Usually he’s lucky to have one.

But after 16 years in the business, he predicts the real rush won’t come for a few more days.

“People tend to wait to make sure the fighting is really over,’’ he said. “Just in case.”

TIMELINE: Israel-Gaza conflict

The eight-day conflict left at least 162 Palestinians and six Israelis dead. The Israeli military reported the sixth death Thursday, saying a soldier had died from injuries sustained in a rocket attack by Gazan militants, the Associated Press reported.

ALSO:

Gaza City's Mukhabarat building defies Israeli airstrikes

Israel-Hamas cease-fire gives each side enough to claim success

Judge questions former French leader Sarkozy in fundraising probe

Read More..

How to Make an All-Instant Thanksgiving Dinner

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and you forgot to reserve a turkey. Or maybe you are short on time, or just really lazy and don’t want to actually cook the meal. Either way, modern food science has the entire turkey day menu covered: Just add water.

We put together an all-instant menu, made up of only room-temperature foodstuffs requiring, at most, boiling water or a microwave to prepare. No baking, barbecuing, broiling, frying, grilling, roasting, sauteing or stewing necessary.

When it comes to instant gratification, freeze-drying is king, we’re told by Washington State University food engineer Juming Tang. And it preserves flavor while making food inhospitable to bacteria.

“It was developed in the 1950s, and gives you the highest quality product over canning, pickling and other food-preservation techniques,” Tang said. “But it’s also the most expensive, about three to 10 times as much.”

So if you are ready to boil and microwave your way out of any kind of really labor-intensive Thanksgiving preparations, here’s what you need.

Turkey

You must abandon the idea of a glistening, crispy skinned bird sitting on the dinner table. No room-temperature substitute comes close. But if there must be turkey, your options abound.

Ideally, you’ve already saved some cooked turkey for a rainy day by freeze-drying it. A more readily available choice is canned turkey, but it’s not a good sign when turkey products for your cat or dog (usually made from industrial food factory offal) overwhelm the human selection.

Beyond that, your best bet is an MRE, or “Meal, Ready to Eat,” developed by food scientists to feed troops hot dishes on the front line. Simply pour a little water in a magnesium-filled pouch for an exothermic reaction, and let ‘er cook.

As a last resort, take a hike to your local gas station for some turkey jerky.

Gravy

Kitchen wars have been fought over what gravy is, exactly, but we think it should be brownish, salty, gooey and bad for you.

Gravy cubes, gravy powder and cans of gravy make it one of the easiest Thanksgiving sides to instantly produce, but we vote for the canned species. That’s because they’re less likely to contain strange ingredients such as hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutamate, sulfiting agents, anti-caking agents, artificial colors and the ever-mysterious “artificial flavoring.” But if you like that sort of thing, go for the powder.

Stuffing

Homemade stuffing calls for a lot of toasting and mixing and baking, but we don’t have time for that. Grab any preservative-rich box of the instant variety, plus some butter (see below), and add boiling water.

Butter

Whoever said turkey is the essential element to any Thanksgiving dinner never looked at the ingredients list. Butter sneaks it way onto just about every fixin’, especially dessert.

The average stick of butter lasts only a few months in a refrigerator, but powdered butter lasts for about 5 years. That’s because it’s a dry powder, and bacteria need water to thrive. Go ahead and grab the big can — you’ll need it.

Cranberry Sauce

Don’t over-think this one. Secure a can of gelatin-infused cranberry sauce and be merry.

Mashed Potatoes

You will have no problem securing some instant mashed potatoes, thanks again to the wonders of freeze-drying.

Green Bean Casserole

Merge one can of French-style green beans with one can of cream of mushroom soup, then top with FUNYUNS® or some other mysterious fried onion substitute. Not your grandmother’s recipe, but it’s functional.

Candied Yams

Replicating the crusty-gooey mouth feel of yams, brown sugar and marshmallows without an oven isn’t impossible.

If you’re boiling water on the stove top for another dish, roast the marshmallows on a stick over the flames, then drop them onto the yam and brown sugar mixture. Better yet, cram your dish into the microwave and watch the marshmallows turn into goo.

Bread

Who needs the yeasty aroma of fresh-baked bread when you’ve got bread-in-a-can?

Pie

Making a pie using by only adding water may sound ludicrous, but it’s as easy as… not baking a pie.

For the crust, mash up vanilla wafers or graham crackers, drip in a few tablespoons of butter and shape the mix into a proper pie-filling receptacle.

Opinions on essential Thanksgiving pie fillings vary, but whatever you’re making, gelatin — collagen extracted from ground-up animal bones, hides and skin — is your friend. Mix spices, primary filling (e.g. canned pumpkin), condensed milk, reconstituted eggs (see below) and any other ingredients into some water and gelatin, heat it in the microwave for a bit, then dump it into your crust.

Cooling helps gelatin molecules solidify into a wiggly matrix, so take advantage of chilly weather by setting the pie outside.

Eggs

A few dinner menu staples call for eggs as a binding agent, especially the pies. Thanks again to freeze-drying methods, there’s a powder for that.

Whipped Cream

We don’t know what’s in it, but whipped cream powder is out there.

To play it on the safer side, get some freeze-dried heavy cream powder, add water and whip it up with an electric beater.

If we missed anything, let us know in the comments. And if anyone actually makes the Wired.com instant Thanksgiving dinner, send a photo to @wiredscience on Twitter.

Images: 1) Flickr/Mr. T 2) Flickr/Paul Pellerito 3) PackItGourmet.com 4) Flickr/pinprick 5) Flickr/sandwichgirl

See Also:

Follow us on Twitter @davemosher and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Read More..

Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.

The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.

Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.

“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”

FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.

In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.

Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.

Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.

Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Apple Pear Strudel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer.

Filling for 2 strudels:

1/2 pound mixed dried fruit, like raisins, currants, chopped dried figs, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries

1 1/2 pounds apples (3 large) (I recommend Braeburns), peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons unsalted butter for cooking the apples

1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup (30 grams) chopped or slivered almonds

3/4 pound (1 large or 2 small) ripe but firm pears, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

For each strudel:

8 sheets phyllo dough

7/8 cup (100 grams) almond powder, divided

1 1/2 ounces butter, melted, for brushing the phyllo

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment.

2. Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour on hot or boiling water to cover. Let sit 5 minutes, and drain. Toss the apples with the lemon juice.

3. Heat a large, heavy frying pan over high heat and add 2 tablespoons butter. Wait until it becomes light brown and carefully add the apples and the sugar. Do not add the apples until the pan and the butter are hot enough, or they won’t sear properly and retain their juice. But be careful when you add them so that the hot butter doesn’t splatter. When the apples are brown on one side, add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds, flip the apples and continue to sauté until golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the pears and dried fruit, then scrape out onto one of the lined sheet pans and allow to cool completely. Divide into two equal portions (easiest to do this if you weigh it).

4. Place 8 sheets of phyllo dough on your work surface. Cover with a dish towel and place another, damp dish towel on top of the first towel. Place a sheet of parchment on your work surface horizontally, with the long edge close to you. Lay a sheet of phyllo dough on the parchment. Brush lightly with butter and top with the next sheet. Continue to layer all eight sheets, brushing each one with butter before topping with the next one.

5. Brush the top sheet of phyllo dough with butter. Sprinkle on half of the almond powder (50 grams). With the other half, create a line 3 inches from the base of the dough, leaving a 2 1/2-inch margin on the sides. Top this line with one portion of the fruit mixture. Fold the bottom edge of the phyllo up over the filling, then fold the ends over and roll up like a burrito. Using the parchment paper to help you, lift the strudel and place it on the other parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with butter and make 3 or 4 slits on the diagonal along the length of the strudel. Repeat with the other sheets of phyllo to make a second strudel. If you are freezing one of them, double-wrap tightly in plastic.

6. Place the strudel in the oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush again with butter, rotate the pan and return to the oven. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Yield: 2 strudels, each serving 8

Advance preparation: The fruit filling will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator. The strudel can be baked a few hours before serving it. Recrisp in a medium oven for 10 minutes. It can also be frozen before baking, double-wrapped in plastic. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time.

Nutritional information per serving: 259 calories; 13 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 15 milligrams cholesterol; 34 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 91 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

The Shrewd Shopper Carries a Smartphone

Tim Gruber for The New York Times

From left, Tara Niebeling, Sarah Schmidt, Bridget Jewell and Erin Vande Steeg are members of the social media team at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

Retailers are trying to lure shoppers away from the Internet, where they have increasingly been shopping to avoid Black Friday madness, and back to the stores. The bait is technological tools that will make shopping on the busiest day of the year a little more sane — and give shoppers an edge over their competition.

Those with smartphones in hand will get better planning tools, prices and parking spots. Walmart has a map that shows shoppers exactly where the top Black Friday specials can be found. A Mall of America Twitter feed gives advice on traffic and gifts, and the Macy’s app sends special deals for every five minutes a shopper stays in a store.

“The crazy mad rush to camp out and the crazy mad rush to hit the doorbusters have really made people think, ‘I’m just going to stay home on Black Friday,’ ” said Carey Rossi, editor in chief of ConsumerSearch.com, a review site. “This is going to invite some people back and say, ‘You know what? It doesn’t have to be that crazy.’ ”

Part of the retailers’ strategy is to slap back at online stores like Amazon.com, which last year used apps to pick off shoppers as they browsed in physical stores. But the stores are also recognizing that shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving need not require an overnight wait in line, a helmet and elbow pads. A smartphone gives shoppers enough of an edge.

“This takes away that frantic Black Friday anxiety,” said Lawrence Fong, co-founder of BuyVia, an app that sends people price alerts and promotions. “While there’s a sport to it, life’s a little too short.”

Denise Fouts, 45, who works repairing fire and water damage in Chandler, Ariz., is already using apps to prepare for Black Friday, including Shopkick, Target’s app and one called Black Friday. “There still are going to be the crowds, but at least I already know ahead of time what I’m going specifically for,” Ms. Fouts said.

Last week, Macy’s released an update to its app with about 300 Black Friday specials and their location. In the Herald Square store, for instance, the $49.99 cashmere sweater specials will be in the Broadway side of the fifth-floor women’s department.

“With the speed that people are shopping with on Black Friday, they need to be really efficient about how they’re spending their time,” said Jennifer Kasper, group vice president for digital media at Macy’s.

When shoppers keep the app open, Macy’s will start sending special deals to the phone every five minutes. The deals are not advertised elsewhere.

Walmart has had an app for several years, but recently introduced an in-store mode, which shows things like the current circular or food tastings when a shopper is near a certain location. Twelve percent of Walmart’s mobile revenue now comes from when a person is inside a store.

For Black Friday, the app will have a map of each store, with the precise location of the top sale items — so planners can determine the best way to run. “The blitz items are not where you think they would be, because for traffic reasons, maybe the hot game console is in the lawn and garden center,” said Gibu Thomas, senior vice president for mobile and digital for Walmart Global eCommerce.

Target is also testing a way-finding feature on its app at stores that include some in Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. If a shopper types in an item, the app will give its location.

Other app makers are betting that shoppers want apps that pull in information from many stores.

RedLaser, an eBay app, lets shoppers use their phones to compare prices and recently started using location data to give shoppers personalized promotions when they walk into stores, including items not on store shelves at Best Buy, for instance. RetailMeNot, which offers e-commerce coupons, now has offline coupons that will pop up on users’ cellphones when they step near 500 malls on Black Friday.

“Consumers are not going to download 40 different apps for 40 different stores,” said Cyriac Roeding, co-founder of Shopkick, a location-based app that gives shoppers points, redeemable for perks, when they walk into stores or scan certain items.

For Black Friday, Shopkick is publishing what it calls a little black book with the top doorbusters. Shoppers will earn extra points and rewards for shopping on Black Friday.

Read More..

Feds charge former hedge fund manager in big insider-trading case

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a former hedge fund portfolio manager with securities fraud in connection with what they said was the most lucrative insider-trading case ever prosecuted.

In complaints filed in New York, authorities said investment advisors and hedge funds made more than $276 million in illegal profits or avoided losses by trading before the announcement in 2008 of negative results from clinical trials for an Alzheimer's disease drug being developed by Elan Corp. and Wyeth.

Prosecutors charged Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager at CR Intrinsic, an unregistered investment adviser, with securities fraud for allegedly illegally using information about the clinical trial results that he obtained from a neurologist at a hospital involved in the testing.

The criminal complaint did not name the neurologist, which it said was a cooperating witness in the case.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a a related civil suit Tuesday against Martoma, CR Intrinsic and Dr. Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. The SEC suit said Gilman was chairman of the safety monitoring committee overseeing the clinical trials of the Alzheimer's drug.

Martoma met Gilman some time between 2006 and 2008 through paid consultations, the SEC complaint says. "During these consultations, Gilman provided Martoma with material, nonpublic information about the ongoing trial," the SEC complaint said.

In mid-July 2008, "Gilman provided Martoma with the actual, detailed results of the clinical trial" before an official announcement on July 29, 2008, the SEC said.

The FBI, SEC and U.S. attorney's office in New York scheduled a 12:30 p.m. EST news conference to discuss the case.

"The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going – specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent," said Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for Manhattan.  "As alleged, by cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time."

Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+.

Also:

Senate moves insider trading bill to Obama's desk.

Baseball star Eddie Murray settles insider-trading investigation.

Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta guilty of insider trading.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/17/business/la-fi-sec-murray-20120818

Read More..

Key E-Mail-Privacy Senator Denies a Turn to the Dark Side

Patrick Leahy, the Vermont chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and legislative aides denied a report Tuesday that the Democrat had reversed himself on legislation that would require authorities to obtain a probable-cause warrant to get access to all e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.

Leahy’s comments on Twitter and on his website came hours after CNET News.com reported that Leahy was pushing a new draft of the proposal that, instead of tightening the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, would actually expand the government’s authority to obtain e-mail without warrants.

He did not deny that the anti-privacy version of the bill was circulating on the Hill, but said it did not have his support, and that he would not be backing it at a planned November 29 public committee hearing.

“The rumors about warrant exceptions being added to ECPA are incorrect. Many have come forward with ideas for discussion before markup resumes on my bill to strengthen privacy protections under ECPA,” Leahy said on his site. “As normally happens in the legislative process, these ideas are being circulated for discussion. One of them, having to do with a warrant exception, is one that I have not supported and do not support.”

The draft uncovered by CNET would have given 22 federal agencies access to Americans’ e-mails with an administrative subpoena, which does not require judicial approval based on probable cause.

The ACLU, which has been involved in discussions over the legislation, backed Leahy’s version of events, and said he never supported the anti-privacy draft.

“This was a discussion point,” said Chris Calabrese, the legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “He’s not interested in doing that.”

The amendment was virtually identical to a proposal by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who floated the amendment during a September hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Calabrese said.

The current law covering access to e-mail gives the government the right to snoop without a court order on e-mail that’s older than 180 days, but requires a court order for missives that are newer than this, a fact that privacy activists and Leahy have been trying to change for years.

A legislative aide to Leahy, who declined to be quoted, said via a telephone call that there still might be “some tweaks” to Leahy’s proposal before the committee vote. Others familiar with the discussions suggested the tweaks might include granting the authorities warrantless access to university and corporate e-mail, but noted that no proposal has been finalized.

A Leahy aide said the senator was not immediately available for comment.

Jim Dempsey, the vice president for the lobbying group, Center for Democracy & Technology, said Leahy was floating a draft that supports CNET’s story. But it was only to weigh interest, Dempsey said, because so many Washington insiders, including the Justice Department and an army of lawmakers, oppose Leahy’s initial version.

“Leahy was trying to figure out some way to meet those concerns. He tried to put some words on paper to try to address those concerns,” Dempsey said. “But various people explained that his proposal was not going to be a step forward and would not be the privacy improvement the senator had hoped for.”

Leahy initially proposed the sweeping digital privacy protections in September after first failing to push them through last year. But he quietly had been circulating a revised draft following the elections, Dempsey said.

Leahy’s initial package, if approved as proposed, would nullify the provision of ECPA that allows the government to acquire a suspect’s e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed, as long as the content has been stored on a third-party server for 180 days or more. Currently, to acquire such data, the government only needs to show, often via an administrative subpoena, that it has “reasonable grounds to believe” the information would be useful in an investigation.

When enacted two decades ago, ECPA provided much more privacy than it does today. The act was adopted at a time when e-mail wasn’t stored on servers for a long time, but instead was held there briefly on its way to a recipient’s inbox. E-mail more than 6 months old was assumed abandoned.

As technology advanced, more and more people began storing e-mail on cloud servers indefinitely. And Congress has so far been unwilling to change course, despite the Fourth Amendment implications as data storage in the cloud has grown.

No matter what package comes out of the Judiciary Committee, if anything at all, the full Senate would have to approve it, as well as the House and President Barack Obama.

Read More..

Camembert to clocks: Dali’s genius on show in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – The broadest-ever retrospective of Salvador Dali, opening in Paris this week, seeks to move beyond the shameless self-promotion that the 20th century Surrealist was often derided for and stress his indelible influence on artists today.

Once dubbed “Avida Dollars” for his love of money, Dali is regarded by some as little more than a marketing product, his Spanish home an obligatory tourist stop, his trademark melting watches the inspiration for money-spinning souvenirs.

But a new show at the Pompidou Centre lays bare the extent of his creative genius, exploring how his experiments with painting, cinema, advertising and installations influenced movements from Pop Art to today’s performance art.

The show, which runs from November 21 to March 25, is set to be a blockbuster of the Parisian art calendar. The last Dali retrospective at the Pompidou in 1979 remains the most visited exhibition in the museum’s history.

“There’s this vision we have of there being a good Dali, the Surrealist, and then the one who came after, who made money,” said exhibition curator Jean-Michel Bouhours.

“We needed to go beyond this distinction between the good and the bad and show how the experimental Dali was extraordinarily important in the history of art and the artistic models that developed in the 60s and 70s.”

The exhibition features some 200 works by the Spanish master, including the famous 1931 “The Persistence of Memory” with melting pocket watches, which Dali said was inspired by watching camembert cheese liquefying in the sun.

Also on show are dozens of works on paper, projects for stage and screen, photographs and films such as the 1929 “Un Chien Andalou“, written with Spanish director Luis Bunuel.

His designs for ballet, decorative arts and even a pavilion for the 1939 New York World Fair earned him the derision of fellow Surrealists such as Andre Breton.

But Dali saw mass media as a more efficient way than painting of getting across his “paranoid critique” of the world.

His 1935 installation, “Mae West’s Face Which May be Used As An Apartment” with its lip-shaped sofa showed an obsession with celebrity that would later influence the Pop Art of Andy Warhol.

Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali in 1904 in the Catalan town of Figueres, Spain, Dali remains a controversial artist, loved for his creative genius but dismissed by some as a madman and hated for his at times grotesque artistic vision.

Although an anarchist in his youth and deeply attached to his native Catalonia, he was criticized for later declaring himself a monarchist, turning to religion and moving closer to the post-war authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco.

His love of show business and manic declarations such as “Surrealism is me”, alienated many. But he is cited as an influence for many artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

Dali died of heart failure in Figueres in 1989, seven years after the death of his wife and muse Gala.

(Reporting By Vicky Buffery, editing by Paul Casciato)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Global Update: Meningitis Vaccine Gets Longer Window Without Refrigeration

In what may prove to be a major advance for Africa’s “meningitis belt,” regulatory authorities have decided that a new meningitis vaccine could be stored without refrigeration for up to four days.

The announcement was made last week at a conference in Atlanta of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While a few days may seem trivial, the hardest part of protecting poor countries is often keeping a vaccine cold while moving it from electrified cities to villages with no power. In antipolio drives, for example, the freezers, generators and fuel needed to make ice for the shoulder bags of vaccinators can cost more than the vaccine.

The new vaccine, MenAfriVac, made in India for 50 cents a dose, was introduced in 2010. In bad years, epidemics during the hot harmattan winds have killed as many as 25,000 Africans and disabled 50,000 more. In Chad this year, vaccination drove down cases to near zero in districts where it was used, while others nearby had serious outbreaks.

Experts decided that the vaccine is safe for four days as long as it stays below 104 degrees.

While temperatures get higher than that in Africa, said Dr. Godwin Enwere, medical director for the Meningitis Vaccine Project, teams normally get the vaccine out of coolers at dawn, drive to villages and finish before the day heats up. Other experts said it should be kept in the shade and monitored with colored paper “dots” that darken after hours in the heat.

Read More..

DealBook: Ex-Trader Charged in $276 Million Insider Scheme

Federal prosecutors brought what they called “the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever charged,” filing a criminal case on Tuesday against a former trader at a unit of the hedge fund SAC Capital.

Mathew Martoma, a former trader at CR Intrinsic, a division of SAC Capital, was charged with making about $276 million in combined profits and avoided losses by obtaining confidential information about a drug trial for an Alzheimer’s drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth.

The case is the latest to put the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen and his hedge fund, SAC Capital, in the spotlight over insider trading crimes committed by former employees.

Mr. Martoma received the information from Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan, a leading expert in Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Gilman is cooperating with the government and has entered into a nonprosecution agreement with the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Mr. Gilman connected with Mr. Martoma through an expert network firm based in New York. Expert networks became popular on Wall Street in the last decade, linking Wall Street money managers to specialists in various industries to help give them an edge on their investments. Expert networks have been a focus of the government’s widespread crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds.

His consulting work at the expert network firm earned Mr. Gilman more than $100,000, according to a parallel civil complaint against Mr. Martoma and Mr. Gilman filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

According to the complaint, between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Martoma consulted with Mr. Gilman on dozens of occasions about the preliminary results of the drug trial and accumulated a roughly $700 million position in the stocks of Wyeth and Elan. Mr. Gilman was chairman of the safety committee overseeing the drug trial.

In June 2008, the complaint says, Mr. Martoma received secret information about negative data relating to the drug trials. After receiving that information, Mr. Martoma caused SAC Capital to sell its entire inventory of roughly 10.5 million shares in Elan and about 7 million shares of Wyeth before the public release of the data.

The day after the study was announced, Elan stock lost about 42 percent of its value and Wyeth dropped about 12 percent. The inside information allowed SAC Capital to make about $276 million in illegal gains.

Mr. Martoma left SAC Capital in 2010, according to a spokesman at the hedge fund. A lawyer for Mr. Martoma could not be reached immediately for comment.

In a statement, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney, said: “The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going – specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent. As alleged, by cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time.”

Mr. Martoma is the latest person to have worked at SAC to be ensnared in an insider trading investigation. Jon Horvath, a former technology industry analyst at SAC, pleaded guilty in September to participating in a conspiracy that illegally traded in the shares of Dell computer. His boss, the former portfolio manager Michael Steinberg, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator but has not been charged in the case. Mr. Steinberg’s lawyer, Barry Berke, declined to comment.

Last year, two former SAC portfolio managers – Donald Longueuil and Noah Freeman – admitted to trading on illegal tips about publicly traded technology companies. Mr. Longueuil is serving a two-and-a-half-year term at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y.; Mr. Freeman, who is cooperating with prosecutors, has yet to be sentenced.

SAC CAPITAL UNDER A MICROSCOPE The firm has been under a cloud since a former employee, Richard Choo-Beng Lee, pleaded guilty in 2009 to insider trading and began helping the government in its investigation. The crimes he confessed to were committed after he left SAC, but he agreed to provide information about his five years at the firm, which ended in 2004.

NAMES	THE CASES
Jonathan Hollander	The former analyst paid more than $220,000 to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing him of trading in his personal account on confidential information about the 2006 takeover of the Albertsons grocery store chain.
Jon Horvath and Michael Steinberg	Mr. Horvath, right, a former technology industry analyst, pleaded guilty in September to participating in a conspiracy that illegally traded in the shares of Dell computer. His boss, the former portfolio manager Mr. Steinberg, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator but has not been charged in the case. Federal prosecutors contend they were part of a seven-person conspiracy — a “circle of friends” — that earned about $62 million in illegal gains trading on secret tips from executives at publicly traded technology companies.
Donald Longueuil and Noah Freeman	The two former portfolio managers admitted in 2011 to trading on illegal tips about publicly traded technology companies. Mr. Longueuil, right, was swept up in a crackdown on so-called expert networks. He is one of roughly a dozen implicated in the case. Mr. Longueuil is serving a two-and-a-half-year jail term at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y.; Mr. Freeman, who is cooperating with prosecutors, has yet to be sentenced.
Mathew Martoma	The former trader at CR Intrinsic, a unit of the hedge fund, was charged with making about $276 million in combined profits and avoided losses by obtaining confidential information about a drug trial for an Alzheimer’s drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth.

Read More..

Judge denies bid for Nativity displays in Santa Monica

A person jogs by last year's Nativity scene in Palisades Park. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / November 19, 2012)

By Martha Groves

November 19, 2012, 1:40 p.m.

The city of Santa Monica can bar seasonal displays, including a Nativity scene that has appeared in Palisades Park for nearly 60 years, a federal judge ruled Monday.

In a closely watched case that has attracted national attention, Judge Audrey B. Collins denied a request from the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee to erect multiple large displays depicting the story of the birth of Jesus in the park overlooking the ocean. The coalition of churches has erected the displays every December since the 1950s.

But last year, after requests for display spots exceeded the space allotted, the city held a lottery to allocate spaces. Atheists won 18 of 21 spots. A Jewish group won another. The traditional Nativity story that used to take up 14 displays was crammed into two.

Controversy erupted, and as a result, the city decided the lottery would become increasingly costly. Last June, the City Council voted to ban all private unattended displays.

In October, Nativity scene proponents filed suit in federal court to allow the traditional Christian displays to continue. In a 27-page tentative ruling, Collins denied the group permission to erect their displays this year while the case is pending.

"The atheists won," said William Becker, attorney for the Nativity group. He then went on to compare the city to Pontius Pilate, the judge at Jesus' trial, saying: "It's a shame about Christmas. Pontius Pilate was exactly the same kind of administrator."

Santa Monica's attorney, Barry A. Rosenbaum, said the city is "very pleased" with the ruling. The judge, he said, "understood the government interests and that [groups wanting to put up displays] have a number of alternatives to erect displays." 

All the parties are due back in court Dec. 3, when the judge will hear additional arguments in the case.

Read More..

Mark Cuban Calls Facebook a 'Time Waster'

Mark Cuban isn’t done criticizing Facebook. After saying last week the social network had “blown up” and alienated businesses by limiting their access to users’ news feeds, the Dallas Mavericks owner and tech entrepreneur is now calling Facebook a “time suck” that needs to learn its humble place in the media landscape.

Cuban posted the comments to his personal blog to clarify comments he made last week to ReadWrite on how Facebook aggressively filters posts from business pages to users’ news feeds. He wrote that Facebook is a “time waster” for people too anxious to “talk to the person next to you.” As such, Facebook should not bother filtering posts from business owners like Cuban:

FB doesn’t seem to want to accept that its best purpose in life is as a huge time suck platform that we use to keep up with friends, interests and stuff. I think that they are over-thinking what their network is all about .

Being a time suck that people enjoy is a good thing… [But] who really appreciates that some posts rise to the top of their newsfeed because some folks they used to work with and are still friends with shared a baby picture ? … In a perfect FB world every post enters the friends/like/subscriber’s timeline. If they log in and want to spend the time searching their timeline they see it, if not, not.

The Facebook news feed has been algorithmically favoring selected content, like the baby picture Cuban mentioned, since its launch in 2006. Facebook programmers are constantly tweaking the feed — to please users, they say — and in September began filtering page posts more aggressively after complaints about spam. This meant that business owners like Cuban tend to reach fewer users with each post and must buy “promoted post” advertising from Facebook if they want to reach even more.

Filling the role of “time suck” is actually a competitive job for properties like Facebook, which has made billions in profits replacing earlier time sucks like MySpace, Friendster, and AOL. Facebook itself faces competition from the likes of Twitter and Google, which is partly why it spends so much time trying to improve the relevance of its news feed.

It’s odd that Cuban, of all people, doesn’t appreciate the complexity involved in being a “time waster.” His NBA team the Mavericks spends inordinate time and money trying to be a compelling “time suck” for fans with nothing better to do than watch strangers play basketball for hours on end. The Mavericks hone elaborate on-court strategies, release and acquire highly skilled players, and strike complex broadcast and merchandizing arrangements. They don’t let just any random dribbler onto their home court to entertain the fans. Facebook works the same way.

Read More..

Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat and cane fetch over $60,000 at auction

NEW YORK (Reuters) – One of Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hats and a cane, the staple of Hollywood silent-era comedy, were auctioned for $ 62,500 on Sunday, said auction house Bonhams.

Chaplin’s hat and cane, which fetched more than the initial estimate of $ 40,000-60,000, are synonymous with his “Little Tramp” character in films such as “City Lights” and “Modern Times.”

Bonhams memorabilia specialist Lucy Carr said earlier it is unknown how many of Chaplin’s bowlers and canes still exist. Those auctioned on Sunday are from a private collection but have a direct link to Chaplin, Carr said.

The waddling and bumbling “Little Tramp” character propelled Chaplin to global fame. The character, Hollywood legend says was created by accident on a rainy day at Keystone Studios, first appeared in 1914′s “Kid Auto Races at Venice” and lastly in 1936′s “Modern Times.”

Chaplin’s hat and cane are the highlights of an auction of popular culture artifacts that is still in progress. Other items include a handwritten letter from John Lennon in which the Beatle sketched himself and wife Yoko Ono nude. There is also an archive of Marilyn Monroe photographs, an early Charles Schulz “Peanuts” comic strip, and a wicker chair from Rick’s Cafe in “Casablanca.”

(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Really?: The Claim: Eye Problems Can Cause Headaches in Children

Really?

Anahad O’Connor tackles health myths.

THE FACTS When a child complains of frequent headaches, many pediatricians order an eye exam. “In some pediatric ophthalmology practices, it’s a daily occurrence,” said Dr. Zachary Roth, a resident in ophthalmology at Albany Medical Center in New York.

Often, a child may experience headaches while reading or doing schoolwork, leading parents to think the child needs glasses. But are eye problems really a cause of childhood headaches?

In a recent study, Dr. Roth and his colleagues examined 158 children under age 18 who were referred to ophthalmologists for frequent headaches. Then, they evaluated the children’s medical records and looked at the results of earlier vision exams.

Ultimately, the researchers could not find any significant link between headaches and diagnoses of vision problems. In three-quarters of the subjects, the headaches went away over time, both in those who received new glasses and those who did not.

The study, which was presented at a recent American Academy of Ophthalmology conference, was not designed to look for causes of the headaches. But there were “quite a few” children with family histories of migraine, Dr. Roth said. Sinus problems and stress headaches also appeared to be common issues, he added.

“I think the take-away message is that it’s very unlikely for headaches to be caused by an eye problem,” he said. “The experience of all the ophthalmologists we talked to is that it almost never seems to be related to the eyes, so it’s probably more fruitful to investigate other causes.”

THE BOTTOM LINE Vision problems are often blamed for childhood headaches, but in reality, the two are rarely related.

Read More..

News Corporation Looks at Potential Acquisitions

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch, second from left, with his sons, Lachlan, left, and James, second from right, and Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, in July in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The media conglomerate, which had been on its heels for more than a year because of the phone hacking scandal in Britain, is looking to make acquisitions again. First on the list could be a 49 percent stake in the Yes Network in New York, a purchase that could become the foundation for a new nationwide sports network to compete with ESPN.

News Corporation’s stock has reached highs as the company prepares to transfer its underperforming publishing assets, including newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, into a separate publicly traded entity.

One of the crucial factors in the decision was that the split would allow Rupert Murdoch, the company’s chairman and chief executive, to buy into the businesses he loves without upsetting investors who are more interested in cable and broadcast. Potential targets include The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and more education companies.

“Rupert has his mojo back,” said Todd Juenger, a media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “The stock is up, investors are happy with the company’s recent decisions.”

“He is definitely rubbing his hands together,” a person with knowledge of News Corporation’s deal-making discussions said of Mr. Murdoch.

In the last several weeks, Mr. Murdoch has exuded a satisfaction and sure-footedness that people close to the company said they had not seen since before Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper unit became embroiled in a phone hacking scandal. That is in part because hacking has been overtaken in the press by an unfolding scandal at the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The BBC, which Mr. Murdoch and his son James have frequently criticized, is accused of canceling a news program’s segment about serial child molesting committed by longtime host Jimmy Savile, and broadcasting false reports of pedophilia about a member of Margaret Thatcher’s administration.

People close to Mr. Murdoch said he considered the BBC scandal karmic justice for months of negative coverage of News Corporation, and he has provided almost daily commentary via Twitter. “BBC getting into deeper mess,” he wrote on Nov. 10. “After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as pedophile.”

And the BBC scandal touches another Murdoch rival — The New York Times, whose parent company’s new chief executive, Mark Thompson, served as director general at the BBC. Mr. Thompson’s replacement at the BBC, George Entwistle, resigned on Nov. 11 after just 54 days on the job. “Look to new CEO to shape up NYT unless recalled to BBC to explain latest scandal,” Mr. Murdoch wrote on Twitter last month.

As News Corporation sank into its hacking scandal last year, it delayed new acquisitions. In September, Britain’s Office of Communications, known as Ofcom, said that British Sky Broadcasting, 39.1 percent owned by News Corporation, was “fit and proper” to hold a broadcast license. The decision removed a cloud of uncertainty at News Corporation’s Manhattan headquarters and cleared the company to revisit deals, analysts said.

“The internal narrative at the company is that the boss is in shopping mode,” said one person close to News Corporation who could not discuss Mr. Murdoch’s thinking publicly.

Dropping its $12 billion bid for the portion of BSkyB that it did not already own gave News Corporation ample cash to complete share buybacks and consider other acquisitions. The company had $9.6 billion in cash at the end of its 2012 fiscal year and in September borrowed another $1 billion.

On a recent earnings call, Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, said: “We always seem to be the topic of the day when it comes to a rumor of some transaction.” Still, he added: “There are places where we think we should kick the tires on things.”

Last week News Corporation neared a deal with Yankees Global Enterprises to buy a 49 percent stake in the Yes Network, a regional New York sports network, with a valuation of about $3 billion. A stake in Yes would add to News Corporation’s lineup of regional sports channels and contribute to its reported plans to introduce a national cable sports channel that could take on the Walt Disney Company’s ESPN.

“It’s one of the only businesses where there’s no No. 2,” said Michael Nathanson, a media analyst at Nomura Securities. “In our view, sports is the safest asset in media.”

This month the company paid an estimated $250 million for the portion of ESPN Star Sports that it did not already own. ESPN Star Sports, based in Singapore, operates 17 sports networks in five languages around Asia.

Read More..

Feinstein has 'concern' about Rice's Benghazi talking points

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday that she has initiated a review of talking points used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on the attack on the American diplomatic facility in Libya, with the goal of determining why the public comments appeared to conflict with the initial assessment of U.S. intelligence sources.

Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, defended Rice against what she called the “politicization” of her comments on the battery of Sunday news shows in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack that led to the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

But the California senator also said she had “some concern” with the process that produced the unclassified “speaking points” that Rice worked off of, in which she said it was the administration’s preliminary view that the attacks were a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamic video, rather than a planned terrorist attack.

Feinstein, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said that the now-former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, had “very clearly said that it was a terrorist attack” in a meeting with lawmakers the day after the attack in Benghazi.

PHOTOS: U.S. ambassador killed in Libya

Asked then why Rice would not call the attack "terrorism" days later, Feinstein said it was because Petraeus’ view was based on information that was not yet cleared for public review.

“She could speak publicly only on unclassified speaking points. I have some concern with those speaking points,” Feinstein said. “We gave the direction yesterday that this whole process is going to be checked out. We are going to find out who made changes in the original statement. Until we do, I really think it's unwarranted to make accusations.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, stopped short of saying information was withheld from initial talking points for political reasons.

Still, he said, “I know the narrative was wrong, and the intelligence was right.”

“The narrative, as it went from at least the CIA and other intelligence agencies, was accurate,” he said. “There were some policy decisions made based on the narrative that was not consistent with the intelligence that we had. That's my concern, and we need to say hey, we need to figure out how that happened.”

The episode involving Rice’s testimony on the Sept. 14 news shows is at the heart of Republicans’ questioning the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack. More recently, it has become the basis for some lawmakers vowing to block the potential nomination of Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State in President Obama’s second term.

Feinstein said it was not right for Rice to be “pilloried” for comments that were consistent with the approved statement she was given to speak off of. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) said that in considering a possible Rice nomination he was “not going to give her a plus for passing on a narrative that was misleading to the American people.”

PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities

“I am very disappointed in Susan Rice … telling a story that was disconnected from reality that did make the president look good at a time when, quite frankly, the narrative should have been challenged not reinforced that Al Qaeda was dismantled,” he said.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said that before appearing on the television shows, Rice should have had a fuller understanding of events.

“She certainly could have gotten the classified briefings. She would have sat down with the National Security Council, and she would have known that those talking points had been watered down, and she could have caveated that in her statement, which she didn't,” King said on ABC’s “This Week.” “President Obama said, don't blame Susan Rice because she had nothing to do with Benghazi. Then why did they send her out as the representative to the American people?”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Rice has “a lot of explaining to do,” and should explain her comments if she is nominated.

“They said they wanted to not give classified assessment of what happened because they didn’t want to betray sources. Well if the classified assessment changed the unclassified assessment, then why in the world would you keep that information from the American people,” McCain said.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be “totally unfair” to hold Rice responsible for simply relaying information she was given. He also accused McCain and Graham of hypocrisy for using the incident to potentially block a Rice nomination.

“Eight years ago when President Bush suggested Condoleezza Rice for secretary of State, some people said, ‘Well wait a minute, wasn’t she part of misleading the American people about intelligence information that led to our invasion of Iraq?’ And it was Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham who stood up and said, ‘Don’t hold her accountable for the intelligence that was given to her,’” Durbin said.

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

michael.memoli@latimes.com

Twitter: @mikememoli

Read More..

Amazing Time-Lapse Video Features Ever-Changing Earth and Sky

.

Heaven meets the Earth in this moving time-lapse video showing gorgeous landscapes underneath an ever-changing night sky.

“Within Two Worlds” was created by photographer Brad Goldpaint. The film features shooting comets, a giant tilting Milky Way, and glowing purple and pink auroras peeking over the horizon. Stunning sequences watch day turn to night and night to day, as overhead stars shine their beautiful light above mountains, forests, and waterfalls.

“This time-lapse video is my visual representation of how the night sky and landscapes co-exist within a world of contradictions. I hope this connection between heaven and earth inspires you to discover and create your own opportunities, to reach your rightful place within two worlds,” Goldpaint wrote on his Vimeo page.

Below you can see some of striking images from the movie, including screenshots of the Geminid meteor shower over Castle Lake in California and auroras over Crater Lake National park in Oregon.

Geminid meteor shower over Castle Lake

The Milky Way soars over Crater Lake as a Lyrid meteor flies overhead.

Star trails over Mount Shasta in California

Pink auroras over Crater Lake

Images and Video: Copyright Goldpaint Photography

Music composed by Serge Essiambre entitled, ‘Believe in Yourself’

Adam is a Wired reporter and freelance journalist. He lives in Oakland, Ca near a lake and enjoys space, physics, and other sciency things.

Read more by Adam Mann

Follow @adamspacemann on Twitter.

Read More..

Cablevision subscribers sue over Hurricane Sandy outages

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Even as workers scramble to clean up the mess that Hurricane Sandy left in the Northeast two weeks ago, a legal mess is beginning to spill into the court system.

Cablevision subscribers Jeffery and Irwin Bard filed a class-action lawsuit against the cable provider in New York Supreme Court this week, seeking restitution for television, telephone and internet outages caused by Sandy, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.

The suit, which alleges breach of contract and unjust enrichment, claims that Cablevision “continued to advertise falsely that it was providing services to its customers” even after the storm caused outages for its customers, and “could not restore services to many of its customers for days, or even weeks.”

Moreover, according to the complaint, Cablevision continued to issue bills for services it was unable to provide in the aftermath of the storm, and “instituted a secretive policy to offer ‘customer credits’ only to customers who affirmatively and actively demanded rebates on a discretionary basis,” rather than offer across-the-board rebates to its customers, even though it had access to which customers had lost power and for how long.

A spokesman for Cablevision told TheWrap that the lawsuit “misstates the facts and is without merit,” and that Cablevision has “an extremely broad and customer friendly credit policy following Sandy.”

“Blanket or arbitrary credits for cable outages could shortchange customers because each case is different and our policy covers the entire period of time when Cablevision service was out, including when the service interruption was caused by the loss of electrical power,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Cablevision does allow for customers to call and process their credit, or go to optimum.net/credit, where they can detail the period of their outage to receive credit.

The suit, filed Tuesday, seeks unspecified damages for each member of the class, plus attorneys’ fees and court costs, along with a permanent restraint barring Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision from billing or invoicing customers when there’s a service outage of more than 24 hours.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..